The Effects of Neighborhood Democracy on Cooperation: A Laboratory Study

:What effect does participation in neighborhood governments have on residents’ willingness to contribute to the provision of public goods? This is an important question to ask given the growth of homeowners associations (HOAs) in the United States. HOAs provide a medium through which citizens can practice democratic skills. The social capital and efficacy built through this participation may increase an individual’s willingness to use his or her own resources to help provide for a community public good. In this article the author hypothesizes that such participation increases the probability that individuals donate to public goods provision. Using an experimental design where subjects in treatment groups participate in a mock HOA meeting and then play an iterated public goods game, the study finds evidence that participation in HOA meetings improves cooperative behavior. This finding suggests that HOA participation has some effect on an individual’s propensity to contribute to the provision of a public good.